Heavenly Sword posts (Subscribe to this feed)

It shouldn't be a surprise to any of us that the demo for Heavenly Sword is on its way. Heck, we already said that it was making its debut sometime in July. We've now got confirmation that the demo is, in fact, complete. Part of the Ninja Theory team came out on their official forums and said "it's in the bag ... so now it's a case of Sony deciding when they feel is the best time to release it to PlayStation Network." By that, we couldn't help but squeal like a schoolgirl with a crush. Could they mean this Thursday's update?

Not likely. Seems the demo itself is actually slated for next Thursday. You know, the 26th. We don't mind waiting an extra week, since most of the PS3 Fanboy staff is still in a hot competition to keep the highest score amongst one another in Super Stardust HD. As far as the game itself, Heavenly Sword is complete and going through the bug-fixing stage. If that's true, they should release it early. We're tired of waiting for this fantastic looking "launch title", honestly.

[Thanks, DolphGB!]

[via PS3Attitude]

We've managed to get our hands on what exactly we can expect from the EU PSN Store this month. After this week's huge update, we had high hopes that this month would continue offering us some excellent content. Those hopes seem to be well founded. Check out the list of releases for the upcoming weeks. While not exhaustive, this list focuses on major, highly-anticipated playable content.

• Heavenly Sword demo
• Crash Bandicoot 2 PS1 game for PS3/PSP
• Spyro 2 PS1 game for PS3/PSP
• WipEout 2097 PS1 game for PS3/PSP
• MediEvil PS1 game for PS3/PSP

We've also heard mention of the Blast Factor expansion, Snakeball and Feel Ski but aren't certain whether these will be coming our way in July. If not, then we'll probably see them in August. Also on the horizon is news about Warhawk and the Motorstorm Coyote Weekend VIP Pass update. Oh, and in the run up to the Heavenly Sword release in September we'll be seeing five "Animated History" videos which give the game some backstory, along with some more making-of content appearing on the Store too. No doubt each week will be peppered with the normal trailers as well.

Showing on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the latest episode of Gamer TV will be a Heavenly Sword special. The show will feature developer interviews as well as new footage from the game. There will also be an interview with Andy Serkis and some critical discussion of how the game is looking.

This is a great opportunity to get an in depth look at the game before E3 hits next week. Gamer TV will be showing on Bravo at different times throughout the weekend. Look below for details and when and where it will be airing.

• Saturday: Bravo 2 @ 10am
• Sunday: Bravo @ 11:30am
• Monday: Bravo @ 5:30pm

A demo for Heavenly Sword is just around the corner, according to comments made by producer Mat Hart (as NinjaMat) in the comment section on the Ninja Theory developer blog. "Keep an eye out for this in the very near future...and i mean very near future!" he said.

Also discussed was the use of blood ("fairly elegant"), game length (12 to 15 hours), and the lack of a Special Edition for the game. "Instead," he said, "we would cram the retail release with as many extras as we could fit onto a [Blu-ray disc]." Expect to see behind-the-scenes features as well as the first two episodes of an animated series that explores the "history of the Heavenly Sword prior to the start of the game."

Heavenly Sword is reportedly due out this September.


[Via PS3 Fanboy]

If you don't want to get any information about Heavenly Sword by cycling through the comments section over at Ninja Theory's blog on IGN, don't worry. We've got the skinny and we're delivering it to you, list style! All answers come courtesy of Mat Hart, producer of Heavenly Sword.

• Blood: "We took a conscious decision to deliver a fairly elegant blood effect rather splashing it all over the walls as this is far more in keeping with the look and feel of the game." We take it that means we'll see some stylish blood-letting.
• Special Edition: In a word, no. Sony has decided that, instead of making you pay extra for a special edition of the game, they're going to let Ninja Theory cram as many as they can onto the single Blu-ray disc. So far, they're planning for the retail disc to feature "a series of behind the scenes features as well as the first 2 episodes of a special 'animated series' exploring the history of the Heavenly Sword prior to the start of the game." Can you say, awesome?
• Game Length: "It's hard to estimate exactly how long it'll take someone to run through it the first time but we believe that you can expect somewhere between 12-15 hours of play."
• Demo: He explains they've got plans for a demo in the very near future and have been working on it for some time. If you want his words exactly, he says to "keep an eye out for this in the very near future...and i mean very near future!" Our clocks are ticking.

That's it for now. We think the word about no special edition is fantastic. It's a great example of a developer really taking advantage of all that extra space. Much better than shoving an extra disc in the case and upping the price $10-20. We'll look for a demo every week until we get one, but from his tone of voice, we might see one either right before or right after E3. Our bet is on right after.

[via N4G]

The PlayStation.Blog's "Inside the Developer's Studio" feature continues in its run up to E3. Yesterday we got a little bit of insight into the upcoming collectable card computer game Eye of Judgment from Felice Standifer. Today Nina Kristensen, co-founder of Ninja Theory, answers Sony's questions regarding the much anticipated Heavenly Sword.

As well as posting her thoughts on the PlayStation.Blog, Kristensen has also had a very interesting interview with Kevin Kelly of Joystiq. Make sure you read both interviews for some insight into the game's story, the goings-on at Ninja Theory, Nariko's mega combo attacks and the trouble with "bollocks". Also, check out the videos that were posted just a wee bit earlier. Hypetastic. We can't wait for this game.

We caught up with Chief Development Ninja Nina Kristensen inbetween sword fights and developing video games at Ninja Theory, and managed to get some skinny on the upcoming PlayStation 3 ubertitle Heavenly Sword. She lets us know all about their influences on the look and style, some of the sexy Nariko's backstory, gives the definitive answer on multiplayer, and what games they play around the office whenever they're lucky enough to find some free time.

Check it out after the break, it'll help you kill some time while you wait for this game to hit the shelves.

The above video, captured at the official press event at the Mayfair hotel in London (again, our invitation must have got lost in the mail), may just be enough to get fence-sitters to buy the game. Opening with a cinematic revealing some backstory of the eponymous Heavenly Sword itself, the video then launches in to some frantic in-game combat. Expect bone-crunching combo moves and a bazooka to feature heavily. Yes, a bazooka.

Despite being captured on shaky-cam and then uploaded to YouTube, the video is still able to impress. From the way the barrels move to the explosion partical effects. Another, clearer, video has been uploaded to Jeuxvideo.fr from the IDEF in Cannes. In it we see a new character talking to Nariko (friend, sibling, lover?) as well as one of those "press the button at the right time to make stuff happen" sequences that are all the rage nowadays. This game is one to watch out for at E3, where no doubt we'll be seeing plenty more of it.

[Via NeoGAF & N4G]

Sony has been going full throttle on it's new PlayStation.Blog with some of the biggest names at the company doing regular posts. This time, the president and CEO of SCEA, Jack Tretton weighs in with an interesting post about the past successes of the PlayStation brand and some of his thoughts of the future. It's interesting stuff and definitely worth reading. He also gives game-starved PS3 owners some good news by implying that the drought is almost done:

"We have more than 15 games coming from our own internal studios alone this year for PS3. Our third party partners will weigh in with a host of great games giving us more than 100 titles by year end on that system alone."

Later on in the piece are hints that we're in for some cool surprises at E3 too, stating that not only will we see new stuff on the known titles like Ratchet and Clank or Heavenly Sword, but also they will announce "a few surprises we have up our sleeves that no one has seen." Intriguing and exciting stuff and we'll find out in less than a month! Anybody want to start the random unsubstantiated guessing on what they're gonna show? I say ... Killzone Bowling and Barbie's Xtreme SOCOM Adventures.

[Via N4G]

Sorry, but nothing playable hits the Store in today's update. Not even a demo of The Darkness. What we do have are tons of videos. So get the microwave ready, pop up some popcorn and get ready to watch:

• Heavenly Sword Gamer's Day trailer. With this trailer on your PS3, at least you can pretend to be playing it.
• MLB 07 The Show trailer. Just in case watching last week's videos wasn't sufficient.
  
• Stranglehold trailer. John Woo's Hard Boiled sequel-turned-to-game gets another visit to the Store.
• Transformers movie trailer. In full HD, you'll get more than meets the eye.
• Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band: Live in Dublin trailer.

Hey ... where's our old 1080p Midway remake for this week?

If you don't really care about learning how to control Nariko, heroine of the upcoming Heavenly Sword game for PS3, you can at least watch her in her element. We're talking about the different battle stances for Nariko. There are three: slow/strong, normal, fast/weak/ranged. Those are very vague and shoddy descriptions, but we feel that's the best way to convey the idea behind them in a short sentence. The video itself goes over the stances as well as a bit of behind-the-scenes discussion about Nariko and the game itself. We're so excited, we can hardly wait for Fall! Enjoy the video, and Nariko's "posh" English accent.

A long time ago we mentioned that a demo for Heavenly Sword was in the works. No, we don't have a date for the demo yet, but from what was gleaned in the statements by Dean Calver, the lead programmer at Ninja Theory, it's coming along quite nicely. Just like the rest of the game. He said, "if you take the PSN demo we are currently doing, then we have a separate team (borrowed from Sony Cambridge) who are doing the work to make it a stand alone demo while the NT team are working on Beta. There's still work for the main team fixing bugs and balancing but it's much less than full time."

Having two teams is pretty wise -- that way no time is wasted making a demo. The "real" team can keep plugging away at making the actual game pure quality and that seems to be exactly what they're doing. An example of their efforts shines through with their approach to load times: " ... at the beginning of each chapter we have a introductory cut scene, while thats happening we are also caching data from Blu-ray to hard disk. This way when we actually are streaming while you play we can use both sources at the same time." We like the sound of that, because loading screens can be pretty annoying if they pop up all the time (we're looking at you, Magna Carta ... you really suck).

Finally, when asked about the percentage of the SPU the team has utilized, Calver has no idea. He said that you only really know stats like that when you feel bottlenecked by the hardware and Ninja Theory apparently hit no walls at all in their programming. This leaves us to wonder if they only used a fraction of the PS3's power, much like Motorstorm. We can't wait to play it!

Or as we like to call it -- God(dess) of War III: In True HD. Okay, all jokes aside, there is simply no denying that the PS3's Heavenly Sword is a beautiful game. The characters, the weapons, the settings, and even the effects like dust and blood are visually stunning. They'll blast onto your retinas and curve your mouth into an "O" face that'll last awhile. Yes, it's really that pretty.

The level demonstrated during the Sony Gamer's Day event happens right after what was already seen on an episode of Heroes. The game's protagonist, Nariko, starts running down a massive rope towards some enemies. They aren't too thrilled with this, so they start chopping the ropes off the platform they're tied to. This forces you to pull off some fairly easy Dragon's Lair type moves as the screen tells you when to run faster or jump to a side. Eventually she makes it down and lands smack dab in the middle of a fight, which is what we were waiting for.

For a long while, any sort of Heavenly Sword screenshot has had that "is it pre-rendered or CG or in-game?" skepticism, but today we've got a gallery to offer that shows the game in action. This is in-game, I'd bet my life on it. It looks fantastic, so there's no complaints here! Be sure to follow Nariko and her adventures with the sword slowly sucking her life away this August. Does anyone think these aren't in-game shots? If so, why not? We'd like to get a discussion going on these. Check out the video, after the cut, to get a better assessment of the visuals.

Heavenly Sword will be released as a single-player game, but Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades has hinted that adding multiplayer as downloadable content is a distinct possibility.

"Maybe we will decide to go down that route sometime soon," said Antoniades in an interview with EuroGamer. "And when we do, it won't just be slapped-on to please marketing tick-boxes. You can be assured that we have our sights on multiplayer." No other details are given as to, for example, what kind of multiplayer is being planned. Co-op? Deathmatch? We'll hopefully learn soon.

According to Antoniades, Heavenly Sword is 90% complete, which gives us the impression that it will make its expected September launch. The full EuroGamer interview is expected to be published tomorrow.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]